Tuesday, January 31

Home Teams is the name of the small group ministry of Fellowship Church. When you have 20,000 in attendance it is impossible to offer small groups on site - hence all the groups being in homes. Here is their purpose statement: "The Small Groups Ministry at Fellowship Church exists to provide a creative and compelling place for adults to meet in small groups for fellowship and Bible study. These Small Group venues provide a place for people to connect to others and to the life of our church while learning to apply basic biblical principles to their everyday life."

What do you think so far? Does your small group ministry have a purpose statement? What is it? - Tim

Last week the three Directors from the Spiritual Formation Department ( Scott Simmons- Youth, Colleen Derr - Children and myself ) attended the annual C3 Conference at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. www.fellowshipchurch.comwww.creativepastors.com We each took a days worth of pre-conference intensives relative to our areas of ministry. The rest of the conference was general sessions with Sr. Pastor Ed Young, Bill Hybels, Erwin McManus and TD Jakes. Not a bad line up!

You know how you feel when you have been to a really great conference? ( Maybe you've never been to a decent conference! ) It's kind of like going home after youth camp and wondering when the spiritual high is going to wear off. Well I gotta say that this conference was incredible and the general sessions were some of, if not, the best stuff I have heard on leading churches and their ministries.

For the next few posts, I'm going to download some of the best stuff from the conference. Right away, let me recommend that you get the conference general sessions on cd and listen to them. -Tim

Monday, January 16

Well we are half way through January and half way through the first month of Year of the Bible. If you are unfamiliar with YOTB it is a promotion from the Spiritual Formation Department of the Wesleyan Church to get people reading through the Bible in one year.

Basically, the response has been tremendous. We are getting reports already of how this is impacting people. Of course, we knew this all along - the Word of God is alive, it is sharp, powerful, and will not return void!

Wednesday, January 11

The website for holynext is now up and running. We are really pleased with the site - check it out @ www.holynext.com It is a flash site - if you encounter any problems you may need to update your flash player. We're working on a no-flash page that will be on our Spiritual Formation site.

We are anticipating holynext to launch a brand new experience for our denomination - a 20 hour journey that will lead you to new levels in your journey with Jesus. The weekend will incorporate a lot of creative elements along with solid teaching, worship, and a few surprises.

We need you to share holynext with your small group, class, Pastor, church, etc. This is an event that can have eternal impact!

Tuesday, January 10

Yeah, I know, I'm a little late! Since I haven't logged a blog since before Christmas...Happy New Year and very best wishes for an outstanding 2006.

We just arrived home on Sunday from a huge round trip from Indianapolis to Boston to New Brunswick to Ottawa and then back to Indianapolis. We think we logged around 60 hours in the rental Chevy Uplander. Our two daughter's necks are permanently fixed in the angle directed towards the ceiling mounted dvd player!

Over the holidays I received a reply to one of my postings inquiring about holynext and specifically on the words "ancient practices". The question was from 'anonymous' and they didn't give me an email address to reply to. By "ancient practices" I am referring to spiritual disciplines that have existed for centuries. In our denomination ( or at least in the churches I am familiar with ) we have not given a lot of teaching to spiritual-biblical practices of worship that draw us closer to Christ. During holynext we will equip you with a practical knowledge of some of these disciplines and real-world suggestions for incorporating them into your journey. Keith Drury will help us with some of this - I recommend his book "With Unveiled Faces".